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| Plans for the Madrassa's |
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| muqaddar |
| 08/05/02 at 12:40:47 |
| New York Times August 4, 2002 Pakistani Clerics Fight School Plans By IAN FISHER SLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 1 - The government here has been too nervous to clamp down directly on the 10,000 madrasas in Pakistan, the Islamic schools often accused of spreading religious extremism. One word in the title of a proposed law says it all: it is the ordinance for "voluntary" madrasa registration and regulation. Yet over the last few weeks, Pakistan's usually fractious religious leaders blasted the plans in one loud voice. They expressed fury at any pressure for them to register, to submit to financial oversight or to accept teacher training and textbooks in exchange for broadening their curriculum beyond Islamic teaching. "The government cannot impose these things on us," Rafi Usmani, leader of a large and influential madrasa in Karachi, told thousands of madrasa supporters at a meeting here in late July. "This is imposed by the Americans, by foreign people." Now, the military government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf - caught between Western worry about the madrasas and the home-grown strength of the clerics - appears to be backing down from even those gingerly steps. This week, government ministers meeting with madrasa leaders said they would consider watering down their proposals, raising questions of whether anything would happen at all. "It's back to the drawing board," said one Western diplomat here. No firm decisions have been made. But the steps toward backing down, said Najum Mushtaq, who wrote a report on madrasas published by the International Crisis Group this week, could lead to failure for Pakistan on two fronts. For one, he said, an ultimate victory by the clerics could translate into "a further entrenchment of the religious lobby. "It has been punching way above its weight," he added. "Now it will gain further nuisance value." As important, he said, is a missed opportunity for a deeper discussion about madrasas and what they mean for development and education in Pakistan, a nation with high illiteracy and a chaotic educational system, where madrasas offer many poor children the chance for an education. A problem as worrisome as religious extremism, he said, is that many madrasas provide little learning relevant to jobs outside mosques, or beyond the 18th-century curriculum that most madrasas use. "The original concept of madrasas was education," said Mr. Mushtaq, who praised madrasas' potential to educate their roughly one million students even as he criticized their currently narrow teachings. "That tradition has just vanished. It has to be re-established as a system of forward and modern education. And it has to be done in a way that curbs extremist conpent." Madrasas, which teach Islam and train clergy, have existed for a millennium, but it is only in recent years that they have become a strong social force. There were only 245 madrasas in 1947, the year of Pakistan's independence from Britain. The numbers rose amid greater Islamization and support for Muslims in Afghanistan in resisting the Russian invasion, which began in 1979. By 1995, the last official count, 3,906 madrasas were registered. The government now says it believes there are 10,000, though no one knows for certain. It is certain, however, that they educate Pakistan's poorest children, giving madrasas legitimacy as social and charitable groups. Americans have focused intently on madrasas only since Sept. 11, when thousands of madrasa students, including many foreign Arabs studying in them, left to become the foot soldiers of jihad against Americans in Afghanistan. Critics of the government's plans have succeeded partly by raising the specter that American pressure is behind them. "It is an interesting phenomenon," said Mukhtar Ahmed, principal of the secondary school affiliated with the Mansoora madrasa in Lahore. "Anything that is against American interests is called fanatic." Abdul Malik, head of the Mansoora madrasa and other schools affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's largest religious party, blamed Americans who wanted to sow strife between the clerics and the government, and spoke of a "Jewish conspiracy." If the government pushed too hard, he warned: "We would resist. This can't happen. It can't be justified in any way." American officials make no secret that they view madrasas as incubators for extremism, but they deny they are behind the proposals. Still, there is little in the proposals that would anger America. Part of the plans would request the addition of English, mathematics, social studies and science to madrasas teaching primary and secondary students, and classes like computer and political science for high school students. There would be voluntary bans on preaching militancy or sectarian division. Most contentious for the madrasas - and an area likely to be watered down - are oversight and restrictions on financing, especially from outside sources like Arab countries. News reports here have focused on the renewed American aid program that includes $100 million over the next five years to improve Pakistan's schools. But, officials say, the program excludes madrasa reform. Yet the perception that Americans are behind the proposed changes remains a major reason for caution on the part of General Musharraf. His alliance with the United States on its campaign against terror in neighboring Afghanistan is not popular, nor is his recent clampdown on Muslim militants crossing over into Indian-controlled Kashmir. General Musharraf's reputation as a more secular leader has not helped him with religious groups. A fight with madrasas, especially one perceived to be on behalf of the United States, seems one battle too many for General Musharraf - especially if he does not want to be at odds with religious leaders as the nation holds in October its first parliamentary elections in three years. Mr. Mushtaq, of the International Crisis Group, said one added difficulty of reform is that madrasas vary so greatly, from small, ignorant schools preaching a return to Islamic life a thousand years ago to large, sophisticated schools with no opposition to teaching secular subjects. And modern curriculum does not mean they embrace the West. The Mansoora madrasa in Lahore is one example of the latter, where boys bob back and forth as they memorize the entire Koran, as boys here have for centuries, even as men like Mr. Ahmed, the principal, talk of the need to modernize. He is proud that his school of 300 students, boys and girls, teaches English, math and computer science - not the backward curriculum at most madrasas, which he said was developed to produce civil servants for the Mogul empire. "Now there are no Moguls," he said. "So madrasas do need reform. The crucial question is, how are they to be reformed?" For him, the answer is by Pakistan's religious leaders, in accordance with their view of Islam. What is not acceptable, he and students in Lahore say, is any hint of American involvement. Even at this most modern of madrasa, it is perhaps best understood what they are not. "This is the lesson of madrasas," said one student, Hamid Ali, 20. "The lesson is that Western civilization is not good for Muslims." |
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